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News, 02-09/04/03 (3) BBC CHRONOLOGY, 3rd - 8th April WARS OF THE WAVES * BBC film maker killed by landmine * Ban on Al Jazeera lifted * Escaped Arab Journalist Questions Western Media's War Coverage * US warplanes bomb Al Jazeera office, kill journalist * Michael Kelly: War reporter, editor and sworn foe of liberal tendencies in American political life * Three Journalists Killed in U.S. Strikes BBC CHRONOLOGY http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/middle_east/2911947.stm * Iraq latest: At-a-glance BBC News Online, 3rd April 0030: Large explosion reported in central Baghdad, with anti-aircraft fire. 0140: Republican Guard units reported moving south from Baghdad to reinforce positions near airport, US military sources say. 0205: Seven US soldiers are killed when a US Black Hawk UH-60A helicopter is shot down by small arms fire near Karbala. Four others on board are reported injured. 0430: A US F/A-18 Hornet warplane crashes over southern Iraq, reportedly having been shot down by a surface-to-air missile. 0600: British military confirm the use of controversial cluster-bomb type L20 bomblets, in fighting on the outskirts of Basra. 0658: US military official says about 500 Iraqi troops were killed trying to recapture a key bridge over the Euphrates River, 30 km (19 miles) south of Baghdad. 0843: US Third Infantry Division say advanced units are within 10 km (six miles) of the outskirts of Baghdad. 0847: US military officials say the Third Infantry Division is taking up positions outside Baghdad international airport. 0919: Iraqi information minister appears on television reading speech attributed to Saddam Hussein, praising Iraq's defence of al-Kut, 150 km (90 miles) south-east of Baghdad. 1013: Iraqi television broadcasts pictures of what it says are the remains of an "American fighter plane" shot down by Iraqi air defence in Basra. 1055: US military officials say American special forces entered a presidential palace near Baghdad overnight, then left again 1138: Iraqi Information Minister Mohammed Saeed al-Sahaf dismisses as "silly" reports that US troops are near Baghdad. 1210: US military shows footage of what it says was raid on Tharthar presidential palace, 90km from Baghdad. There is increasing evidence Iraq regime is losing command and control over the country, US military says. 1340: American marines meet stiff Iraqi resistance at Aziziyah, about 60 kilometres (40 miles) south-east of Baghdad, the BBC's David Willis reports. 1445: Defence officials in Washington say an investigation is taking place into reports that a US F/A-18 Hornet fighter bomber might have been shot down by a Patriot anti-missile battery. 1549: US President George Bush says coalition forces advancing on Baghdad will not stop until Iraq is free, as he addresses troops in North Carolina. 1636: The US military is investigating reports of a friendly fire incident involving US ground forces and an F-15 aircraft that left one soldier dead and others missing, US Central Command says. 1700: Electricity is down in Baghdad for the first time in the war. Artillery fire is heard on the southern outskirts of the city. 1754: US Defence Secretary Donald Rumsfeld says "the majority of oil wealth has been secured" by coalition forces in Iraq. The US military did not target Baghdad's electricity system, military officials say. 1828: US forces are bombarding Baghdad airport, and there are unconfirmed reports of casualties among Iraqi soldiers and civilians. 1852: Iraqi TV shows pictures of Saddam Hussein chairing a meeting of military and Baath Party personnel. 1932: The French Prime Minister Jean-Pierre Raffarin says the US made a "grave political error" in going to war, in a television interview. 2012: Unconfirmed reports say US troops have captured Baghdad airport with tanks and armoured units against almost no opposition from Iraqi forces. 2056: Iraqi Deputy Prime Minister Tareq Aziz says that advancing US-led forces would not be able to take over Baghdad and promised a "huge and costly" war. 2155: Reuters report heavy bombing heard in northern Iraq from the direction of Mosul, Iraq's third largest city. 2230: Large explosions reported near airport, and in central Baghdad, as planes fly overhead. 2255: Jessica Lynch, the rescued US POW is reported to be in good spirits following back surgery at a military hospital in Germany. 2320: An Iraqi military spokesman says that Iraq was still in control of Basra and that Baghad would "swallow whole" invading forces. http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/middle_east/2915589.stm * Iraq latest: At-a-glance BBC News Online, 4th April 0025: At least 16 loud explosions rock the centre of Baghdad in the early hours of Friday, the Muslim holy day. Many hit presidential palaces belonging to Saddam Hussein. 0045: Opinion poll in Argentina shows more people have a positive image of Saddam Hussein than of George W Bush. Almost 25% had a good opinion of the Iraqi leader, against less than 16% for the American president. 0140: Officials say a US serviceman was killed by friendly fire in central Iraq, after being mistaken for an Iraqi soldier while he was investigating a destroyed tank. 0235: The BBC's Justin Webb reports from Washington that US-led forces are likely to test support for the coalition in the Iraqi capital by conducting a series of special forces operations and reconnaissance moves. 0245: The US military says that 320 Iraqi troops have been killed so far in the battle for the Saddam International Airport. 0330: The US military has gained complete control of Baghdad airport, says US battalion commander. 0400: Both houses of the US Congress approve $80bn finance for war on Iraq. However money earmarked for post-war reconstruction will not go to companies in France, Germany, Russia or Syria. 0420: US army intelligence officer says 80% of Baghdad airport in Americans hands. 0500: Sources say the Iraqis remain in full control of the approach road from the Baghdad airport to the city and appear to be piling reinforcements into the area. 0610: Western correspondents accompanying US troops at Baghdad airport say Iraqi troops launch counter-attacks, with heavy gunfire and artillery exchanges taking place in the area. 0710: Iraqi Foreign Minister Naji Sabri tells the BBC that President Saddam Hussein is alive and well, and was meeting his ministers on Thursday. 0817: UK troops say they have killed eight Iraqi militiamen on the edge of the southern city of Basra. 0825: United Nations' aid agencies go back to southern Iraq for the first time since their withdrawal last month. 0930: Iraqi TV broadcasts President Saddam Hussein's statement to the nation read by Iraqi Information Minister Mohammed Saeed al-Sahaf, saying the victory "is within our grasp" and the US-led coalition will be "humiliated". 1030: UK Prime Minister Tony Blair writes a letter to the Iraqi people pledging that post Saddam Iraq will be run by Iraqis and that UK troops "will not stay a day longer than necessary". 1050: US marines approaching Baghdad along the Tigris River from Kut report that about 2,500 Republican Guards have surrendered overnight. US Central Command spokesman Navy Captain Frank Thorp says there is no outright confirmation of the report. 1134: The US Central Command says a car exploded near a checkpoint set up by US-led forces in Iraq on Thursday night, killing three of their soldiers, a pregnant woman and the car's driver. A US military spokesman says the blast - north-west of Baghdad - appears to have been a suicide attack. 1217: The US military say Saddam International Airport in Baghdad has been renamed Baghdad International Airport, although the base is not yet believed to be secured. 1254: US officers say they have found thousands of boxes containing vials of white powder and liquid at a "suspicious site" near Latifiya, south of Baghdad. 1300: French Foreign Minister Dominique de Villepin insists that the UN must start to play a key role in Iraq, after the US refused to specify what contribution the body would make. 1515: Correspondents accompanying advancing Kurdish guerrillas in northern Iraq say massive plumes of smoke are rising from oilfields near the town of Kirkuk. They say it is not clear whether oil wells are ablaze or Iraqi defenders have set fire to oil-filled ditches. 1525: The first emergency convoy from the United Nations World Food Programme (WFP) has crossed from Turkey into northern Iraq. A convoy of 23 trucks is the first of many the WFP hope to send in to Iraq from several states bordering the country in the coming weeks. 1555: Iraqi Information Minister Mohammed Saeed al-Sahaf has said that US forces at Baghdad's main airport are encircled and isolated. He has said the Iraqi military is preparing to launch what he called "non-conventional" attacks later on Friday against the coalition troops at the airport. He added that Iraq had no plans to use chemical of biological weapons. 1635: A US commander who led a push by marines through southern Iraq has been relieved of his post, US Central Command has confirmed. No reason has been given for this. Colonel Joe Dowdy was commander of the 1st Marine Expeditionary Force Regimental Combat Team 1. He was reported to have led his men to within 130km of Baghdad. 1640: Saddam Hussein has made a television appearance, calling on the Iraqi people to strike against US troops surrounding Baghdad. 1730: Iraqi TV has shown footage of what it said was President Saddam Hussein visiting residential areas in Baghdad on Friday. The Iraqi leader was mobbed by cheering, chanting Iraqis. Some of them kissed him on his cheeks and hands, and he held up a small child. The television station said he had visited buildings bombed by US warplanes. There is no independent verification of this. 1735: Electricity has been restored to some parts of Baghdad - nearly 24 hours after the city was plunged into darkness when power supplies were cut. 1755: US President George W Bush and UK Prime Minister Tony Blair are to meet in Northern Ireland on Monday and Tuesday. They are expected to discuss the war in Iraq, as well as the situations in the Middle East and Northern Ireland. 1830: The Washington Post says that Michael Kelly, an editorial columnist with the newspaper, was killed in an accident involving a vehicle while travelling with US troops in Iraq. Kelly is the first US journalist to die in the war. He is also the first journalist of any nationality to die among the hundreds "embedded" with coalition forces. 1845: Iraq's state news agency says two Iraqi women were responsible for Friday's suicide attack which killed coalition forces. 1900: Arab satellite TV al-Jazeera resumes work in Iraq after authorities lift ban imposed on two of its reporters. 2011: Relief group Medecins sans Frontieres suspends operations across the whole of Iraq after the disappearance of two team members, the BBC's Paul Greer reports. 2130: The commander of British forces in the Gulf, Brian Burridge, says that Iraqi forces could use civilians as human shields in an attempt to retake Baghdad's international airport. 2245: Fresh explosions rock the centre of Baghdad. 2300: Reuters reports Sergeant Hasan Akbar is charged with murder in connection with grenade attack on 101st Airborne Division in Kuwait that killed two on 23 March. 2320: US artillery pounds eastern Baghdad, with Iraqi army returning fire, Reuters witness says. http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/middle_east/2919403.stm * Iraq latest: At-a-glance BBC News Online, 5th April 0020: ABC News reporter says seven civilians, including three children, died when US marines fired at two lorries that refused to stop at a checkpoint south of Baghdad. 0030: UK International Development Secretary Clare Short gave her backing to the US organisation set up to oversee humanitarian aid to Iraq in the immediate aftermath of hostilities. 0055: US National Security Adviser Condoleezza Rice says that coalition forces and not the UN will play the leading role in a post-war Iraq, at least in the short term. 0200: Three large explosions rock the south-eastern outskirts of Baghdad, a Reuters correspondent said. 0230: A US soldier is charged with the murder of two officers in a grenade attack at an army camp in Kuwait last month; Sergeant Hasan Akbar also faces 17 counts of attempted murder. 0400: Two US marine pilots have been killed when their AH-1W Super Cobra attack helicopter crashed in central Iraq early on Saturday morning, US military said. 0430: Up to eight US Abrams tanks begin reconnaissance mission in the southern outskirts of Baghdad, making furthest land advance yet into the capital. 0510: Reuters report that a US officer has said that first tests of a white powder found in thousands of boxes near the Iraqi capital indicated it was not a chemical weapon. 0700: Reports of a series of very loud explosions in the south-western outskirts of Baghdad, which was subjected to continuous heavy bombing all night. 0710: US military says "substantial forces" moving into the centre of Baghdad. 0800: US forces say they have captured the headquarters of the Republican Guard's Medina Division, south of Baghdad. 0820: US soldiers reported injured during fighting in Baghdad. 0830: BBC correspondent says Iraqi artillery being moved into position within Baghdad. 0845: A "significant number" of US troops are entering Baghdad and they are not just on a brief patrol, US Central Command forward headquarters in Qatar says. 0915: Evidence of battle on southern fringes of Baghdad - including several burnt-out Iraqi personnel carriers - but no sign of US forces, reliable sources tell BBC. 0930: Iraqi information minister denies that US troops have entered central Baghdad and says American forces have been expelled from the city's main airport. 0945: British forces in southern Iraq discover the remains of hundreds of bodies, some in military uniform, in what is being described as a makeshift morgue. 1000: Western correspondents attached to the US mechanised infantry division at Baghdad airport say heavy fighting has been taking place as units move against Iraqi defenders on the highways leading to south-west Baghdad. 1005: Three Iraqi diplomats expelled from the Turkish capital, Ankara, for "carrying out duties incompatible with their status". 1100: US Central Command says its incursions into urban Baghdad are "rolling patrols" to maintain a presence in Baghdad - but not necessarily to occupy territory. 1105: Republican Guard suffered "comprehensive defeats and heavy losses" in fighting in Baghdad, UK prime minister's spokesman says. 1110: Iraq's claim to have retaken Baghdad's main airport is "groundless", US Central Command says. 1215: US Central Command in Qatar declares Baghdad airport "secure" and being reinforced to bring it into operational use. It says the battle for Baghdad is "far from over", despite recent US raids in the city. 1310: The BBC's correspondents in Baghdad say they have not seen any presence of US troops in the city centre. 1315: Iraqi Information Minister Mohammed Saeed al-Sahaf reads a statement on Iraqi state television which he says is from President Saddam Hussein. The statement urges the Iraqi people to "step up attacks on the invading forces". 1506: In his weekly radio address, US President George W. Bush says American troops "will not stop until Iraq is free". President Bush says the Iraq war is part of a "great and just cause". 1527: Military sources at the US-led coalition headquarters in Qatar confirm that their aircraft struck the residence of the Iraqi chief commander in the south, Ali Hassan al-Majid, also known as "Chemical Ali", in Basra early on Saturday. 1530: The first food aid to northern Iraq - about 1,000 tonnes of wheat flour - is unloaded at a United Nations' office in the town of Dohuk, the BBC's Nick Thorpe reports. 1540: In an interview with the Arabic television channel al-Jazeera, Iraqi Information Minister Mohammed Saeed al-Sahaf denies reports of US raids into Baghdad. He says pictures of the fighting being shown are not shots of the city's outskirts, but of the district near the airport. 1607: US combat aircraft begin 24-hour-a-day patrols over Baghdad to provide close air support for US ground troops, commander of the US-led air campaign Lieutenant-General Michael Moseley says. 1610: Iraqi Republican Guard units around Baghdad have been crippled as an organised force, General Moseley says. 1723: A bomb explodes in the centre of Baghdad, next to the Palestine Hotel where many journalists covering the war are based and where briefings by the Iraqi information ministry are held. 1945: Iraqi state TV shows pictures of Saddam Hussein with sons and top military commanders. 2000: Massive explosions heard in the centre of Baghdad. 2329: Members of the Fedayeen militia seen patrolling streets of Baghdad and staffing machine-gun positions. http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/middle_east/2921465.stm * Iraq latest: At-a-glance BBC News Online, 6th April 0007: Al-Jazeera television reports that Republican Guard units are on the streets of Baghdad, carrying weapons and riding in lorries. 0144: Australian Prime Minister John Howard, who sent 2,000 troops to fight with the US led coalition, warns that the war may yet go on for "some time". 0510: The BBC's John Simpson in northern Iraq reports that Kurdish fighters have been calling in air support to tackle Iraqi resistance as they move towards the cities of Kirkuk and Mosul. 0514: Iran's Foreign Minister Kamal Kharrazi heads to Turkey for a day of talks about the war in Iraq which borders both countries. 0630: Iraqi television says the authorities will impose a travel ban in and out of Baghdad from 1800 (1400 GMT) to 0600 (0200 GMT) beginning on Sunday night. 0655: A column of 2,000 US vehicles moves into the outskirts of Baghdad to join two similar formations already operating in the south-west of the city, says the BBC's Peter Grant who is with the US 54th Engineers. 0701: The sound of artillery barrages can be heard from the southern outskirts of Baghdad, says the BBC's Rageh Omaar. 0830: A US plane drops a bomb on a convoy of US special forces and Kurdish civilians in northern Iraq in a "friendly fire" incident, leaving many dead and injured, says the BBC's John Simpson who is travelling with the convoy. 0836: The US military says it has found the bodies of the bodyguards of Ali Hassan al Majid, the Iraqi commander in the south also known as "Chemical Ali", in a house in Basra bombed on Saturday. 0840: British tanks are reported to have entered the centre of Iraq's second city, Basra. 0850: US forces have killed between 2,000 and 3,000 Iraqi fighters in Baghdad since US troops attacked the city's outskirts, the US military says. 1011: A convoy of Russian embassy diplomats, said to include the Russian ambassador, has come under fire as they were evacuating from Baghdad. Several people are said to have been injured. 1045: Iraqi Information Minister Mohammed Saeed al-Sahaf says Iraq has killed 50 US troops and destroyed at least six US tanks close to Baghdad international airport overnight. He again denied US troops had taken control of the airport. 1113: The US military acknowledges its warplanes may have attacked a convoy in northern Iraq where at least three people have been killed, some of them Americans, on 3 April. 1120: The US military says it has captured and killed a number of foreign fighters during clashes in Iraq, and that it destroyed a camp at Salman Pak believed to have been used by the Iraqi regime to train foreign volunteers in terrorist tactics. 1130: The coalition holds more than 6,000 Iraqi POWs, the US military says. 1146: Iraq information minister dismisses reports of death of Iraq's southern commander Ali Hassan al-Majid, dubbed "Chemical Ali". 1150: Iraqi President Saddam Hussein awards medals to two female suicide bombers, reports Iraqi satellite TV. 1235: US TV station NBC announces the death in Iraq of presenter David Bloom, from pulmonary embolism - not combat-related. 1310: BBC correspondent Gavin Hewitt reports fierce artillery exchanges in western Baghdad, sees dozens of burnt out Iraqi armoured vehicles. 1310: US Central Command says initial reports indicate coalition troops not responsible for attack on Russian diplomats leaving Baghdad. 1340: US forces have begun to airlift Iraqi opposition fighters - under the control of the Iraqi National Congress and its leader Ahmed Chalabi - into southern Iraq, American network ABC reports. 1350: US Deputy Defence Secretary Paul Wolfowitz says it will take more than six months for an Iraqi government to be created to run the country after the defeat of Saddam Hussein's regime. 1456: A Kurdish party spokesman says 18 people have been killed and at least 45 others injured in the "friendly fire" incident, when the convoy of US special forces and Kurdish civilians in northern Iraq was apparently attacked by a US plane. 1500: Senior US military commander says the Iraqi army defending Baghdad is now struggling to assemble 1,000 soldiers for each battle. 1634:The convoy with Russian diplomats leaving Baghdad was caught in a crossfire between US and Iraqi forces, says Alexander Minakov, Russian journalist from the convoy. 1715: The first US military aircraft - reportedly a C-130 cargo plane - lands at Baghdad's airport, US military officials say. 1826: US forces say they have taken control of the central Iraqi city of Karbala after two days of fierce battles. A US spokesman says American troops fought street-to-street and were confident there was no further threat of an Iraqi attack. 1830: UK soldier killed during Sunday's fighting in Basra, officials say. 1955: UK Ministry of Defence says three British soldiers were killed during Sunday's assault on Basra. 2115: Ahmad Chalabi, leader of the opposition Iraqi National Congress, tells CBS's 60 Minutes programme that US forces should stay in Iraq for two years - until elections can be held. 2130: Six large explosions rock the southern outskirts of Baghdad. http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/middle_east/2923385.stm * Iraq latest: At-a-glance BBC News Online, 7th April 0100: Chilean President Ricardo Lagos - whose country currently sits on the Security Council - says the United Nations should have a key role in post-war Iraq. 0200: US warplanes bomb both the centre and the outskirts of Baghdad in dawn raids. 0330: Iraqi television says Saddam Hussein is offering $8,000 to anyone who destroys an allied tank, armoured personnel carrier or artillery. 0432: A column of US tanks and armoured vehicles are attacking targets in central Baghdad, American military officials say. 0455: The BBC's Rageh Omaar says he can see US armoured personnel carriers near a presidential palace, where a fierce battle is raging. 0515: US troops reported to have taken Saddam Hussein's main presidential palace in central Baghdad as more than 100 tanks and armoured vehicles pour into the city, supported by A-10 "tankbuster" aircraft. 0520: US army colonel interviewed outside a presidential palace in Baghdad says American forces have control of the centre of the city and the heart of the Iraqi Government structure. 0540: US troops report only "sporadic resistance" as they took the main presidential palace. 0550: A BBC correspondent says a fierce gun battle is in progress by the banks of the River Tigris. 0600: US Defence Department and Central Command sources say the operation is a "show of force" and not the much-anticipated "battle for Baghdad". 0625: A correspondent for Reuters news agency in Baghdad says the Iraqi information ministry and the foreign ministry are firmly in Iraqi government hands - and that heavily armed units of the Iraqi Republican Guard have taken up positions in the area. 0630: Iraq's information minister gives a press conference in central Baghdad at which he claims American armoured columns have been "slaughtered" and forced out of the city - as correspondents report continued fighting. 0700: US Central Command spokesman says operation in Baghdad is "an armoured raid through the city" whose goal is not to take ground. 0705: Television pictures from the northern city of Mosul show it coming under heavy bombardment. 0720: BBC correspondent says British paratroopers storming old town of Basra. 0725: A BBC correspondent in Basra says British commanders there are convinced that they have killed the Iraqi commander Ali Hassan al-Majid - known as "Chemical Ali" - but there has been no confirmation that he is dead. 0740: American marines are entering Baghdad from the south-east, US military spokesmen say. 0840: A correspondent for Reuters news agency describes an area of Baghdad that includes residential housing as a "battle zone" as US and Iraqi forces fight in the heart of the city. 1000: At least two US marines killed in fighting at a bridge over the River Tigris in Baghdad. 1020: Several US soldiers wounded in Iraqi missile attack on American base in southern outskirts of Baghdad. 1030: Britain has "strong indications" that "Chemical Ali" was killed in a coalition attack but cannot confirm his death, UK Defence Secretary Geoff Hoon says. 1100: Coalition special forces carrying out "unconventional warfare" in southern, northern and central Iraq - US Central Command. 1120: US Central Command says American forces have destroyed an Iraqi column of tanks, other armoured vehicles and artillery to the north-west of Baghdad, preventing the reinforcement of those defending the city. 1150: Heavy bombing and shelling reported across Baghdad. 1155: British forces have effectively taken control of Basra after killing 300 members of the Iraqi military inside the city, the BBC's Hilary Anderson reports. 1227: Two US soldiers and two journalists are killed and 15 people wounded in an Iraqi rocket attack on a US communications centre just south of Baghdad, US military officials say. 1345: Commander of UK forces in Gulf, Air Marshal Brian Burridge, says Saddam Hussein regime is "finished" in Basra, but some paramilitary resistance continuing. 1350: Iraqi state television shows Saddam Hussein and son Qusay meeting top aides. 1430: UN Secretary General Kofi Annan says he expects UN to play an important role in post-war Iraq. 1435: Commander of US-led invasion force, General Tommy Franks, visited troops at three locations in Iraq, US military officials say. 1547: Polish media say two Polish journalists - named as Marcin Firlej and Jacek Kaczmarek - abducted by armed Iraqis at checkpoint near Hilla, about 130 km south of Baghdad. 1705: Medical aid group Medecins Sans Frontieres (MSF) says two of its workers are missing in Baghdad. 1730: US President George Bush arrives in Belfast for key war summit with UK Prime Minister Tony Blair. 1800: US officials say preliminary field tests on a number of chemicals found near the Iraqi city of Karbala, suggest the possible presence of nerve agents. 1805: Firefight breaks out in the centre of Nasiriya - it is believed the fighting is between Iraqi groups, possibly between Fedayeen members faithful to Saddam Hussein and people opposed to him. 1830: US Defence Secretary Donald Rumsfeld says Saddam Hussein "no longer runs much of Iraq", though his whereabouts remain unknown. 2130: United Nations Secretary General Kofi Annan says the UN is central to legitimising any interim government in Iraq. 2210: Kurdish leader welcomes the reported death of Ali Hassan al-Majid, nicknamed "Chemical Ali", who ordered the 1988 gas attack on Halabja. But the Patriotic Union of Kurdistan's Barham Salih said he would have "preferred to see him respond to his crimes before an international criminal court". 2230: Al-Jazeera reports that the Palestinian embassy in Baghdad has come under bombardment by US and UK forces. 2330: Gulf Co-operation Council foreign ministers call for Iraqis to be allowed to run their own country when hostilities finish. http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/middle_east/2927125.stm * Iraq latest: At-a-glance BBC News Online, 8th April 0055: Explosions and machine-gun fire heard at Saddam Hussein's Baghdad palace held by US forces, according to a Reuters correspondent, who said it seemed as if Iraqi forces were bombarding the compound. 0100: Five huge explosions heard in western Baghdad, around presidential palace, and fire is blazing in the area, reports AFP. 0155: The Pentagon says US warplanes have targeted Baghdad location where Saddam Hussein, his two sons and other top Iraqi leaders are believed to be. 0235: US officials say the air strike against the Iraqi president was carried out at 1000 GMT on Monday, by a single B-1B bomber. One official remarks "there is a big hole where that target used to be", but it is not known what casualties were inflicted. 0325: US and Iraqi troops inside Saddam Hussein's presidential palace compound exchange heavy artillery and tank fire as US tanks try to move north. 0450: Al-Jazeera television says its Baghdad offices have been hit by a US missile, wounding a cameraman. Another employee is missing. 0500: US marines are engaged in a gun battle with Iraqi militiamen in the south-east of Baghdad. A CNN correspondent travelling with the marines says they are moving into the city. 0640: US and Iraqi troops exchange fire over two key bridges in central Baghdad, Reuters reports. 0650: Al-Jazeera television says correspondent Tariq Ayyub has died of injuries suffered after a bomb hit its Baghdad offices. 0700: Iraqi state TV goes off the air. Earlier, it failed to broadcast its regular morning news bulletin on the conflict, relaying archive footage of Saddam Hussein and patriotic songs instead. 0728: Two US Apache helicopter gunships bombard a compound believed to be used by Republican Guards in south-eastern Baghdad with rockets and machine-guns. Warplanes are also sighted in the area. 0746: US Abrams tanks appear on the strategic Jumhuriya Bridge across the River Tigris and open fire at targets in eastern Baghdad. 0752: Iraqi domestic state radio goes off the air. A US officer says the coalition would "clearly... like to destroy Saddam's capability to disseminate lies". 0807: Blast hits Baghdad's high-rise Palestine Hotel, which houses foreign media. At least two journalists are wounded. 0825: Iraqi Information Minister Mohammed Saeed al-Sahhaf tells reporters that US forces must surrender or "be burned in their tanks". 0837: Reuters confirms that four of its staff - a reporter, photographer, TV cameraman and TV technician - were wounded in the Palestine Hotel blast and are now in hospital. The extent of their injuries was not immediately clear. 0842: A US A-10 ground attack plane comes down near Baghdad international airport, the Pentagon reports. The pilot, who ejected, has been recovered and is in good condition. 0853: The BBC's Rageh Omaar says a mortar bomb appears to have caused the blast at the Palestine Hotel and the building was not deliberately targeted. 0940: Two Polish journalists captured by Iraqi forces on Monday escape their captors and reach safety in the central Iraqi city of Najaf. 1000: A US tank fired a single round at Baghdad's Palestine Hotel in response to fire from small arms and rocket-propelled grenades, General Buford Blount, commander of the Third Infantry Division, tells Reuters. Four Reuters staff and a Spanish cameraman were wounded. 1020: US President George W Bush says an interim authority composed of Iraqis from both inside and outside the country will be set up as quickly as possible. The UN, he adds, will have a vital role to play in rebuilding Iraq. 1053: The US A-10 ground attack plane lost over Baghdad was shot down, General Blount confirms. 1132: US marines capture the Rashid military airfield on the eastern outskirts of Baghdad, meeting no resistance, an officer tells Reuters at the airfield. The airfield is five kilometres (three miles) from the city centre. 1135: Reuters cameraman Taras Protsyuk, 35, dies of wounds received when a US tank shelled Baghdad's Palestine Hotel, the main base for foreign media in the city. Three other Reuters staff and a Spanish cameraman were also wounded. 1148: The International Federation of Journalists condemns both sides in the Iraq war over the deaths of reporters and says those responsible must be brought to justice. 1202: Medical supplies in Baghdad are critically low and hospitals stretched to the limit coping with casualties, the International Committee of the Red Cross warns. 1226: The leader of Iraq's main Shia Muslim opposition group, Ayatollah Mohammad-Baqer Hakim, announces he will return home after living in exile in neighbouring Iran for more than two decades. 1235: Iranian students pelt UK Embassy in Tehran with petrol bombs chanting "death to America, death to Britain". 1337: Kurdish soldiers backed by US special forces are gradually advancing on the Iraqi controlled towns of Kirkuk and Mosul in the north, the BBC's Dumeethra Luthra says. The strategy seems to be one of attrition rather than trying for a big push, our correspondent adds. 1342: Spanish cameraman Jose Couso, 37, dies of wounds received when Baghdad's Palestine Hotel, the main base for foreign media in the city, is hit. A Reuters cameraman earlier died of his wounds. 1422: The Palestinian Authority says its diplomatic mission in Baghdad has been badly damaged by a missile from a US warplane. 1600: French President Jacques Chirac says the UN must play a central role in the reconstruction of Iraq. 1632: A stray rocket, apparently fired in the war in neighbouring Iraq, killed one person in south-western Iran, the third such case since war began, reports said. 1650: UK security sources tell the BBC that they do not believe Saddam Hussein is dead. 1758: Pentagon says Iraqi leadership still giving orders but they "do not seem very coordinated". 1805: Pentagon says it believes Iraqi Special Republican Guard still has "great potential for some sharp fights". 1810: American marines make a large move eastwards in central Iraq and now control a region around Amarah, a town halfway between Basra and Baghdad, although they have not yet entered the town. 1830: British military spokesman in Basra Colonel Chris Vernon says the British will support a local sheikh trying to stop looting in the city. The army hopes to develop "post conflict nation building" operations within a day or so. 1910: President George W Bush says the United Nations will play a vital role in Iraq after the war, working with the US and Britain to help set up an interim Iraqi authority. 1930: Correspondents in Baghdad report more heavy bombing of the city after darkness falls. 2115: Al-Jazeera tells BBC News Online that it is not pulling its correspondents out of Baghdad, despite death of one of its reporters. 2205: A group of journalists from the Abu Dhabi satellite television channel appeal for help from the Red Cross, saying they were caught in the fighting between American and Iraqi troops and could not leave their office in central Baghdad. 2310: US lists two airmen as missing in action, after their F-15E plane went down on Sunday. WARS OF THE WAVES http://www.guardian.co.uk/international/story/0,3604,928391,00.html * BBC FILM MAKER KILLED BY LANDMINE by Luke Harding in northern Iraq and Matt Wells The Guardian, 3rd April A BBC cameraman was killed and a producer injured yesterday when they stepped on landmines while filming near the frontline in Kurdish northern Iraq. Kaveh Ibrahim Golestan, 52, a distinguished Iranian cameraman, was working with three others including the BBC correspondent Jim Muir in Kifri, two hours' drive from Baghdad. Stuart Hughes, their producer, suffered an injured heel. The team were visiting a fort on the edge of town which the Iraqi army had been shelling after abandoning it the previous day. Hughes, 31, stepped out of the car and trod on a mine. Witnesses said Golestan confused the explosion with artillery fire and jumped out of the vehicle. He stepped on a second mine and died instantly. Muir, the BBC's veteran Tehran correspondent, escaped with cuts and bruises. Last night he was in hospital in Sulaimaniya and US special forces troops were arranging to fly him out. Golestan had worked for the BBC for more than 10 years and had covered virtually all the big stories in the region, including the uprisings after the first Gulf war in 1991 and the 1980s war between Iran and Iraq. He won a Pulitzer prize for his work. He and Muir had been on assignment in northern Iraq for two months. Last night arrangements were being made to return his body to Tehran, where he lived with his wife and 19-year-old son. The BBC's director of news, Richard Sambrook, said: "Kaveh Golestan was an outstanding photojournalist who had worked in support of freedom of expression in his native Iran and elsewhere and was well known to many western news organisations. He had worked with the BBC for many years. Our deepest sympathy goes to his family and friends." http://english.aljazeera.net/topics/article.asp?cu_no=1&item_no=1809&version =1&template_id=277&parent_id=258 * BAN ON AL JAZEERA LIFTED aljazeera.net, 6th April Al Jazeera resumed full coverage of the US-led invasion of Iraq on Friday evening, after Iraqi authorities reversed their decision to ban two of its correspondents. "Al-Jazeera welcomes the move by the Iraqi Information Ministry to reverse its decision and immediately re-launches the activity of its correspondents in Baghdad, Basra and Mosul," the Arabic-language channel said. Early Thursday morning, the Iraqi Ministry of Information halted reports by the channel's Baghdad correspondent Diyar Al-Omri and ordered the immediate expulsion of Taysir Aluuni, also with the Baghdad bureau. No reason was given for the orginal decision or its reversal. The unexplained decision was met by Al Jazeera with a freeze on all reporting from its eight correspondents across the country. However, it continued broadcasting live or taped video events from its offices in Baghdad, Basra and Mosul. Both Iraqi authorities and the US military have expelled several correspondent's since the start of the 16-day-old invasion. A CNN crew and Australian reporter have been expelled by Iraqi authorities, while journalists from Fox News and The Christian Science monitor have been ordered to leave by the US military. Heavily criticised by Washington for its uncensored footage of civilian casualties and US prisoners of war, Al Jazeera continues to draw viewers from the Arab world and beyond. The broadcaster has seen a 10 percent spike in its international audience, up to 44 million since the start of the war against Iraq. It is the only international network with reporters in the northern city of Mosul and the Iraqi held part of the southern city of Basra. http://www.arabnews.com/Article.asp?ID=24832 * ESCAPED ARAB JOURNALIST QUESTIONS WESTERN MEDIA'S WAR COVERAGE by P. Jayaram Arab News (Saudi Arabia), 7th April NEW DELHI, 7 April 2003 ‹ An "embedded" Arab journalist who escaped after being captured by Iraqis has questioned the coverage of the war by the Western media, saying it has become an integral part of the war machine. "Once you are embedded with them you can write only what they want you to write. You sign papers that stipulate you will get your reports cleared by them before sending it to your editors," Waiel S.H. Awwad, the New Delhi-based Syrian journalist who was covering the war for the newly launched Al-Arabiya television channel, told IANS on his return here. Awwad, who was embedded with the 3rd unit of the US Marine Corps, was captured two days after the war started March 20 when he ventured with his cameraman and technician into an Iraqi village to "get the other side of the story." He was captured by the resistance group of Iraq's ruling Baath Party near Az-Zubayr, a small town some 20 km north of Basra. "They thought I was a spy or an interpreter for the invading forces. They finally accepted my credentials, but would not let me go. "They had seen my face on television as I had covered Afghanistan but said 'you came with the wrong people. You should have come through Baghdad. You don't have the authority of the Iraqi people. You are an infidel'," Awwad said. They were detained in a house as messages went back and forth between his captors and the regional Baath Party office. The final word was "don't let them leave. We are coming to take them," he said. "Execution is the order for you," his captors told Awwad and his colleagues. But on the eighth day of their captivity, freedom came in the form of two Kuwaiti informers. The three were bundled into a car when the guards were away and taken to an area controlled by the British. Awwad, who returned to India on Friday, said that was the end of the war coverage for him and his crew. "We had to return because we had lost all our equipment." His aged parents in Damascus, who were mourning his "loss" and were receiving callers with condolence messages, were thrilled when he called them to say he was safe. "I called my wife and children (in Delhi) next," said the father of four, describing his experience as a "second birth." Awwad came to New Delhi 15 years ago to study medicine at Safdarjang Medical College but after obtaining the degree switched to the media and stayed on to be perhaps the best known Arab face in the Indian capital. He said the coverage of the war by the Western media had totally disillusioned him. All reports filed by the embedded journalists were censored. "If you want to be with them (US and allied troops) you have to follow what they tell you. "They will never tell the truth of how many of their soldiers have been killed," Awwad said, adding that near Az-Zubayr at least 20 British soldiers had been killed though the official figure given was just two. "You can't call it press freedom when you very well know that you are not giving the whole truth. We were the only ones who ventured out to report the other side," he said, adding they could do so because unlike other embedded journalists they were allowed to have their own vehicle because of the loads of equipment they carried. Awwad said it smacked of hypocrisy when Western media like the BBC prefaced reports from their Arab correspondents from Iraq that they were being "supervised" by the authorities. "That is the irony of it. This is what bugs you. You have to submit everything that is filed from the front to military censorship. Still they sit in judgment of reports from the other side. "They call them enemy lines. Whose enemy? Are you a journalist or a soldier?" Awwad asked. "Though they are there to write, you forget about the Iraqi people. But you lose all your objectivity. The restrictions on reporting are such that it only justifies the reason for those who wanted to go to war." http://english.aljazeera.net/topics/article.asp?cu_no=1&item_no=2115&version =1&template_id=263&parent_id=258 * US WARPLANES BOMB AL JAZEERA OFFICE, KILL JOURNALIST aljazeera.net, 8th April Al-Jazeera correspondent Tariq Ayoub was killed on Tuesday when two US missiles struck the Baghdad offices of the Qatar-based channel. "We regret to inform you that our cameraman and correspondent Tariq Ayoub was killed this morning during the US missile strike on our Baghdad office," the Qatar-based channel said in a statement read out during its news bulletin. Another cameraman, Zuheir Iraqi, was slightly wounded with shrapnel to his neck. Ayoub giving his last report minutes before the US attack. They were both standing on the roof getting ready for a live broadcast amid intensifying bombardment of the city when the building was hit by two missiles, according to Tayseer Allouni, another correspondent. Cameraman Iraqi came down bleeding, but Ayoub did not show up. "I ran up as the shells were still falling and crawled on the roof and shouted for Tariq, but he did not answer," Allouni said. "It seems that we have become a target," Tayseer Allouni, Al-Jazeera correspondent said. Another of Jazeera's Baghdad correspondents Majed Abdel Hadi called the U.S. missile strike and Ayoub's death a "crime". "I will not be objective about this because we have been dragged into this conflict," he said, visibly upset. "We were targeted because the Americans don't want the world to see the crimes they are committing against the Iraqi people." Ayoub, aged 35, was married with one daughter. He travelled to Baghdad only five days ago to join the Al-Jazeera team from the channel's Amman office where he had worked as a financial correspondent for three years. Originally from Palestine, he had also worked for the Jordan Times and the international news agency Associated Press. http://www.timesonline.co.uk/article/0,,60-638323,00.html * MICHAEL KELLY: WAR REPORTER, EDITOR AND SWORN FOE OF LIBERAL TENDENCIES IN AMERICAN POLITICAL LIFE The Times, 8th April Although he had covered the 1991 Gulf War for The New Republic and had subsequently edited both that periodical and The Atlantic Monthly, Michael Kelly was perhaps best known for the series of columns he contributed to The Washington Post. Those who met Kelly were always astonished by the stark contrast between the mild and courteous manner of the man, and the virulence of his journalistic invective when it was trained on his favourite target ‹ American liberalism. Bill Clinton, along with what Kelly regarded as the moral bankruptcy to which he had brought the American presidency, was a regular focus for his spleen. In column after excoriating column he attacked Clinton, and, by extension, Democrats in general. As such he was not a characteristic figure in American mainstream journalism, being entirely at odds with the liberal ethos that has so long pervaded the American "thinking" press. Among his bêtes noires were such venerable names in the literary Pantheon as those of Norman Mailer and Kurt Vonnegut Jr, with their Sixties consciences and their scepticism about the rectitude of the American cultural, economic and military juggernaut. Before becoming a opinion-maker Kelly had been a highly respected reporter. It was his desire to return to the narrative depiction of events that led him back to reporting, and to his death in Iraq. Michael Kelly was born in Washington in 1957 into an Irish-American family with journalism in its blood. His mother, Marguerite Kelly, wrote the syndicated column Family Almanac. His father, Thomas Kelly, was a reporter for The Washington Star. In Washington, Kelly was educated at Gonzaga College High School from where he went to the University of New Hampshire, graduating in 1979. From there he went to ABC as a researcher on Good Morning America before beginning on newspapers as a reporter on The Cincinatti Post. There, his reporting and investigative work gained him awards from the Associated Press, Sigma Delta Chi and United Press International. In 1986 he moved to The Baltimore Sun, soon moving back to his home town as the paper's Washington correspondent. Among his assignments were the election campaigns of Jesse Jackson and Michael Dukakis, and it was on the latter that he met his future wife, Madelyn, a producer for CBS. When she went as a producer to the Gulf War he made sure he found himself an assignment there, too, freelancing for The New Republic. This made his name. Keeping his distance from reporting pools and official spokesmen, he turned in what were generally agreed to be the most informed and impartial accounts of the campaign. He stayed in the country after the defeat of Iraq, continuing to file reports on the situation in the Kurdish areas and the mood in Baghdad. His dispatches earned The New Republic the 1991 Ed Cunningham Memorial Award from the Overseas Press Club and a National Magazine Award in 1992. The book arising out of these pieces, Martyr's Day: Chronicle of a Small War (1992), won him the 1992 Martha Allbrand Award for non-fiction from PEN, the writers' fellowship. In that year Kelly joined The New York Times as its Washington correspondent and covered the presidential election campaigns of Ross Perot and Bill Clinton. In 1994 he spent the summer in the Gaza Strip, where he wrote a cover story on Yassir Arafat's Palestinian regime for The New York Times Magazine. At home he had remained unrelenting in his attacks on the Clinton administration, and it was regarded as highly eccentric when, in 1996, he was appointed Editor of The New Republic, whose proprietor was Martin Peretz, a close acquaintance of the Vice-President, Al Gore. As Editor, Kelly did not a whit abate his onslaught on the Clinton presidency, and his editorship did not see out 12 months. In the autumn of 1996 he found another vent for his views when he became a columnist for The Washington Post. This provided a vehicle for some of his most memorable sallies. His second editorship was no less surprising than his first had been ‹ this time the liberal The Atlantic, which had not long before been acquired by the Washington businessman David Bradley. Both at The Atlantic and The New Republic Kelly was greatly liked by his staff, to whom he was loyal, even while determining to do things his way. Kelly joined The Atlantic in 1999 and set about changing its view of America's political and literary culture, both through his own robust counterblasts to liberalism and by getting on board a handful of right-wing writers of his own kidney. Within three years The Atlantic, too, had garnered a sheaf of awards. But Kelly had begun to feel that he wanted to get back to basic reporting, and last year he left the day-to-day running of the magazine, becoming editor-at-large. When the American expeditionary force began to be assembled to attack Saddam Hussein's regime he arranged to file dispatches for The Washington Post. This time, he deliberately turned his back on his former independent stance, since he wanted to report the day-to-day life of a unit in combat. As such he became an "embedded" correspondent with the US 3rd Infantry Division in Iraq, with the idea of producing a chronicle of its progress to become a book. Kelly and the American soldier driving him were killed when the US Army Humvee in which they were travelling south of Baghdad airport came under fire, left the road and rolled into a canal. Kelly is survived by his wife, and by two sons. Michael Kelly, journalist, was born in Washington on March 17, 1957. He was killed in a vehicle accident in Iraq on April 2, 2003, aged 46. http://news.scotsman.com/latest.cfm?id=5968406 * THREE JOURNALISTS KILLED IN U.S. STRIKES The Scotsman, 9th April Three journalists were killed and at least four were injured in three separate attacks in Baghdad by US forces today. Allied commanders were forced to deny that journalists were being targeted in the wake of the attacks which occurred in the space of a few hours this morning. The issue dominated the daily media briefing at the Allied Command Centre in Qatar when US spokesman Brigadier General Vince Brooks faced a series of questions about the incidents. In the first attack, Tareq Ayoub was killed in an airstrike on the al-Jazeera office in the city. The office was almost completely destroyed by two missiles and another cameraman was injured, the network said. The nearby Abu Dhabi TV office was also targeted, the station reported. A group of people were seen carrying a wounded man to a jeep belonging to Abu Dhabi TV. He was then rushed to hospital. Soon afterwards a US tank on a bridge over the Tigris river opened fire on the Palestine Hotel, where most foreign correspondents in Baghdad have been staying. Four employees of the Reuters news agency were injured and one, TV cameraman Taras Protsyuk, a 35-year-old Ukrainian national based in Warsaw, later died. Spanish cameraman Jose Couso, 37, a father-of-two, also died in hospital after being wounded at the hotel, his employer Telecinco said. "We are devastated by the death of Taras, who had distinguished himself with his highly professional coverage in some of the most violent conflicts of the past decade," said Reuters editor-in-chief Geert Linnebank. Protsyuk leaves a widow Lidia and an eight-year-old son Denis. Lebanese-born Samia Nakhoul and Iraqi photographer Faleh Kheiber were both treated for facial and head wounds and concussion after the attack, the agency said. Television satellite dish co-ordinator Paul Pasquale, from Britain, was taken to hospital with leg injuries but doctors said he was not in danger. US forces said the attack on the al-Jazeera office was a mistake. Asked about the hotel attack, Gen Brooks said American troops had reported snipers shooting at them from the high-rise building on the eastern banks of the Tigris. He told reporters: "Initial reports indicate that the coalition forces operating near the hotel took fire from the lobby of the hotel and returned fire. Any civilian loss of life we find most unfortunate." The tank fired at the 14th floor of the hotel, not the lobby. Sky News correspondent David Chater said he saw the tank on a bridge with its barrel pointed directly at the Palestine just before the explosion. "They knew we were there ... there was absolutely no mistake," Chater said of the US forces. But Gen Brooks suggested Iraqis had been using journalists as human shields. "We believe that where it is possible to avoid the loss of civilian life every effort will be taken. "There are a number of places in down town Baghdad there there are civilian populations at risk. "We know that there are practices by this regime to increase that risk deliberately." Al-Jazeera television showed two people being carried on blankets through the hotel lobby before being put in cars. One was soaked with blood. One of the people carrying the wounded could be heard screaming: "I need a car. I need a car." Reporters in bullet-proof vests were shown running down the corridors. At least 11 journalists and media staff have died in the war so far, including two British TV reporters. Channel 4 News correspondent Gaby Rado, 48, was found dead after falling from the roof of a hotel in northern Iraq at the end of last month. His death came a week after ITN correspondent Terry Lloyd, 50, was killed in what was thought to be a "friendly fire" incident in Iraq. Lloyd was travelling towards Basra with cameramen Fred Nerac and Daniel Demoustier, and translator Hussein Osman when their vehicles came under fire on March 22. Demoustier managed to escape but Lloyd was killed. Nerac and Osman are still missing. Demoustier said their car was shot by tank fire and set ablaze. A reporter with the Spanish newspaper El Mundo and a journalist from a German magazine were killed yesterday following an Iraqi rocket attack on a US forces operations centre south of Baghdad. BBC cameraman Kaveh Golestan, 52, an Iranian, was killed on Wednesday in northern Iraq when he stood on a landmine as he climbed out of his car. BBC producer Stuart Hughes was injured in the incident. The corporation's world affairs editor John Simpson was wounded on Sunday in a friendly fire incident in which an American fighter jet bombed a convoy of US and Kurdish forces. A total of 21 people were killed in the incident, including Simpson's 25-year-old translator Kamaran Abdurazaq Mohammed. US journalist Michael Kelly, 46, editor-at-large for The Atlantic Monthly magazine and a Washington Post columnist, died in an accident on Friday in a Humvee military vehicle while on assignment in Iraq. American television journalist David Bloom, 39, who worked for NBC, died from a blood clot on Sunday while travelling with the US infantry. Paul Moran, an Australian cameraman, was killed in an apparent car bombing in north eastern Iraq on March 22. The International Federation of Journalists has accused both sides of endangering the lives of media staff covering the war. Sarah de Jong, human rights officer for the Brussels-based organisation, said the death toll was unusually high. The IFF estimates that between 3,000 and 4,000 journalists are covering the war in Iraq and neighbouring countries with around 660 "embedded" in front line units. "We are very, very concerned, I think it is a fluid situation not only in Baghdad but everywhere else in Iraq where there are coalition troops and where there is still opposition from Iraqi soldiers or militia," she said. _______________________________________________ Sent via the discussion list of the Campaign Against Sanctions on Iraq. To unsubscribe, visit http://lists.casi.org.uk/mailman/listinfo/casi-discuss To contact the list manager, email casi-discuss-admin@lists.casi.org.uk All postings are archived on CASI's website: http://www.casi.org.uk